Search Results

HKCSS-HSBC Social Enterprise Business Centre

The Social Enterprise Business Centre is a website run by the Hong Kong Council of Social Service promoting social entrepreneurship in Hong Kong.

Stimulating Youth Entrepreneurship - Barriers and incentives to enterprise start-ups by young people

The world’s population is growing at a time when traditional, stable labour markets are shrinking. More than 1 billion people today are between 15 and 24 years of age and nearly 40 per cent of the world’s population is below the age of 20. The ILO estimates that 47 per cent of all unemployed...

Social enterprises 'growing strongly'

The UK's social enterprises - businesses trading for social or environmental purposes - bucked the recent recession, a report has said.

Unleashing Entrepreneurship: Making Business Work for the Poor

Unleashing Entrepreneurship: Making Business Work for the Poor, a report to the UN Secretary-General, addresses how the potential of the private sector and entrepreneurship can be unleashed in developing countries, and how the existing private sector can be engaged in meeting this challenge. The...

Standards of Corporate Social Responsibility

Standards of Corporate Social Responsibility, established by the Social Venture Network, are defined in terms of nine interrelated topics. There are three general topics: ethics, accountability, and governance; and, six topics related to each stakeholder group: investors, employees, business...

Social Enterprise Summit 2010

With over 730 attendees the 2010 Summit was the bigges event organised by the Enterprise Alliance. Social entrepreneurs and enthusiasts from over 30 countries around the world convened for three days in April, attending sessions and panels, sharing ideas and making connections. Most importantly,...

The Global Social Venture Competition

The Global Social Venture Competition (GSVC) is the largest and oldest student-led business plan competition providing mentoring, exposure, and prizes for social ventures from around the world. The competition aims to catalyse the creation of social ventures, educate future leaders and build...

Nonprofit Networking: The New Way to Grow

How can a nonprofit increase its social impact? Many would say it needs to grow big to be strong. Instead, says Harvard Business School professor Jane Wei-Skillern, the answer could be in the power of strategic networks.

The Hard Work of Measuring Social Impact

Professor Alnoor Ebrahim of Harvard Business School explains how he thinks non-profit managers should respond to increasing demands from donors to measure social performance. The concepts he examines in a recent article include: * Rather than simply complying with the demands of the most...

A discussion paper on social intrapreneurship

This paper produced by the Doughty Centre at the Cranfield University examines the potential value of social intrapreneurship, and provisionally defines a social intrapreneur as "a person within a large corporation who takes direct initiative for innovation which addresses social or environmental...

Green Works: recycling office furniture

Green Works, a social enterprise based in the UK, collects unwanted office furniture from big companies like Marks & Spencer and recycles it to sell at a discount from one of six London warehouses to schools, colleges, charities, housing associations and small businesses. The firm recently...

Corporate Social Responsibility: An Implementation Guide for Business

Corporate Social Responsibility: An Implementation Guide for Business aims to provide practical guidance on CSR to companies operating in the international context. It contains information on how to assess the effects of business activities on others, develop and implement a CSR strategy and...

Business and Poverty: Opening markets to the poor

Business and Poverty: Opening markets to the Poor, an issue of Development Outreach published by the World Bank Institute, discusses how companies can operate profitably in emerging market economies, while enhancing the well-being of the poor by nurturing them as producers and consumers. The...

Linking Business with Pro-Poor Development

Linking Business with Pro-Poor Development explores two key questions, How can business be pro-poor? and How can such partnerships be made sustainable? The document showcases how an innovative private-community partnership transformed the livelihoods of highly vulnerable families in far flung...

Trade Finance: Make it work for women

Trade Finance: Make it work for women, a news article, reports that women make up 70% of the world's poor, and it is important that they be given access to finance, which is critical to business success. The global financial crisis exacerbates an already dissatisfactory situation of trade financing...

Inclusive Business: Profitable business for successful development

Inclusive Business: Profitable business for successful development, a paper published by The Alliance for Inclusive Business and the WBCSD, defines Inclusive Business as one that seeks to contribute to poverty alleviation by including lower-income communities within its value chain while not losing...

WBCSD Annual Review 2010/2011

WBCSD’s 2010/2011 Annual Review looks back at the activities carried out in the past year and reflects on the challenges ahead. The review uses Vision 2050 as the red thread to show how the WBCSD’s work programme aligns with the pathway it describes, and the role of business in moving toward a...

European Commission (EC) - How to apply for grants from the European Social Fund

This page provides a brief overview of how to participate in European Social Fund actions. The European Social Fund (ESF) is one of the main funding streams provided by the European Commission, and is based on co-financing and shared management. The ESF provides support for five key areas of...

Sigma Guidelines - Putting Sustainable Development into Practice: A Guide for Organisations

The Sigma Guidelines provide clear, practical advice to organisations to enable them to make a meaningful contribution to sustainable development. The guidelines help organisations to effectively meet challenges posed by social, environmental and economic dilemmas, threats and opportunities and...

New guidelines to help investors measure success of microfinance institutions

According to this news article, socially responsible investors are choosing to invest in microfinance to help alleviate poverty. By means of often very small loans, financial services, and technology, microfinance helps the poor, often women, to start self-sustaining businesses in order to escape...